The lesson about a standard exam has been learnt then forgotten

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A national school certificate won't work if it's seen by the states
as a grab for federal control, writes Jack Keating.

The idea of a national year 12 qualification is not new. It was
last seriously mooted in the early 1990s. Then, as now, the impetus
came from the Federal Government, except it was from a Labor
government and it was part of a broader push for greater national
consistency in education and training curriculums and
qualifications. Memories of these events appear to be short.

Those initiatives did result in a national system of standards
and qualifications for vocational education and training, but the
idea of a national school curriculum and a national year 12
certificate languished.

Unlike the response of the states to Brendan Nelson's recent
proposal, in the early '90s there was some agreement from the
states to work towards a national school curriculum framework.

A set of national curriculum statements and profiles were
endorsed by the education ministers in 1993, which were meant to
provide agreed areas of learning and standards for schooling. A
logical extension of this would have been a closer alignment of the
year 12 certificates, including a common national certificate.
However, this has not transpired. Since this high-water mark in
1993, the states have lapsed into the traditional practices of
local curriculums and qualifications.

A national end-of-school qualification is not novel. France has
had its baccalaureate for almost 200 years, and the English
A-levels have been around for almost a century. Unlike these two
countries, however, Australia is a federation, but then so is
Germany, which has its national Arbitur.

While the idea of a national certificate at face value has
appeal, what it should look like and how it could be developed and
managed are complex questions. Some of the recent rhetoric of the
federal and state governments does not help.

Nelson argues that without a national certificate the
International Baccalaureate will supplant the state certificates.
This misses the point that the International Baccalaureate gains
its status through its exclusivity, which would be lost if it
became a mass certificate. However, all of the state's certificates
have had major overhauls since the early '90s, so they are very
different to what they were a few decades ago. The number of young
people staying on to year 12 has multiplied, and the proportion of
students who pass is now more than 90 per cent. The certificates
can no longer be the exclusive credential that they once were
because all state and territory governments have policies of
increasing school retention rates and improving the quality of
education.

Once state governments took little interest in the year 12
certificates, and in some states they were controlled by a board of
local universities who looked at the certificates as an entry
qualification.

In Victoria in the '70s the certificate was controlled by a
board appointed by the universities, as it was primarily a
pre-university certificate. This is no longer the case and state
governments view their curriculums and assessment for the
certificates as key policy instruments. As a result, they are
unlikely to hand them over willingly to the Commonwealth.

If Nelson is serious about a national certificate he needs to
understand this. A national certificate is a good idea, but within
the combination of education and federalism things are rarely
equal. Some lessons from history could be useful. One set of
lessons can be drawn from the training sector, where national
qualifications were achieved for three reasons. First a coherent
case was made for them, second the major constituents - business
and unions - supported their development, and third a national,
rather than a federal approach was taken: they were and still are
endorsed by a national council of training ministers, and
accredited by each of the states and territories under their
legislation. With schools, the case for a national certificate has
never been fully made, and there was substantial resistance from
some of the major constituencies, including elements of the
universities. More importantly, no thought was given to how state
and territory governments - which have the major responsibility for
secondary education - could continue to use the year 12
certificates as one of their key policy instruments.

A national schools certificate has rhetorical appeal, but one
designed and administered by Canberra would provoke strong
resistance from the states.

Given the distance of the Canberra bureaucracy from schools, it
probably would not work. The certificates have needed to be
dynamic, given that all the state governments have initiated
overhauls over the past two decades and will continue to do so.
There would be little gain for them in establishing a national
consistency in exchange for abandoning the capacity to innovate and
adjust the certificates to increase participation, improve learning
quality and create greater equity.

A national framework that allowed local flexibility in the
design and implementation of the curriculum and its assessment, but
which delivered a national certificate might be a possibility. This
is the approach in Germany, where - despite the absence of any
centralised exams - a high-quality certificate has been
maintained.

Any discussion of a national year 12 certificate needs to
include views on what it might look like and how it would work.
Otherwise it will look like a grab for control.